SBR forges new alliance

Stone Brothers Racing wants to broaden its business base by supplying race engines to its rivals through technical and engineering partnerships.

SBR forges new alliance

24 August 2010Michael Lynch

Stone Brothers Racing is not content with just winning the V8 supercar championship through driver Marcos Ambrose. Now the team run by expatriate New Zealand race engineers Ross and Jimmy Stone wants to broaden its business base by supplying race engines to its rivals through technical and engineering partnerships.

For struggling Ford teams the deals should be an instant injection of pace, while for the Stones the liaisons should become a valuable revenue stream.

Ford should be happy, too, given that for the past few years the SBR Falcons are the only Fords that have consistently raced near the front of the field.

The Gold Coast-based SBR has announced a new four-year alliance with another Queensland-based V8 team, the UK-owned Triple Eight Race Engineering. It is the second such deal SBR has fashioned, having earlier this year clinched a two-year agreement to supply the Gold Coast-headquartered Larkham Motor Sport with customer versions of their category-leading V8 power plants.

LMS and its two drivers, Jason Bargwanna and Mark Winterbottom, have seen a significant hike in their performance this year, with Bargwanna achieving a podium-place finish at the Gold Coast Indycar round.

Thus, peripatetic Ford superstar Craig Lowndes (who is joining Triple Eight, his third different Ford squad in five seasons) can look forward to using his best Ford engine yet when he makes his debut for his new team at the grand prix non-championship round in March.

Ross Stone says the deals have been done to help reduce the mounting costs of going racing, with engine and car development these days burning cash like never before.

"A lot of thought has to be put into arrangements like this, but I think an expansion of our engine development business with Triple Eight makes sense," Stone said. "The sport is becoming more and more expensive and partnerships like this are going to be crucial to the future success of everyone involved.

"This deal has come with the encouragement of Ford and will benefit Triple Eight, SBR and Larkham Motor Sport's Orrcon Racing."

Triple Eight Race Engineering's director/manager, Roland Dane, believes the new arrangement will be a win-win for everyone involved. "There is no doubt that SBR has been the benchmark in this series for the past couple of years and if we were ever going to come to an arrangement like this, then SBR were the obvious choice as partners," Dane said.